Reporting and opining upon political and scientific occurrences of interest to me, The Phantom.
This is my soapbox, and I'm standing on it.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Finally, the assault weapon boilerplate for Quebec City.

I think the media is slipping. Normally, this would have shared the news about Quebec City's mosque shooting on the day-of, Sunday. But this is the first I've seen, and it's three days later already.

Way to go, Global News:

Quebec City mosque shooting: Despite strict Canadian laws, illegal guns still within reach

Wow, what an amazing observation. Yes, -criminals- can still get guns despite there being laws against thing like that. There's laws against murder, but we have a bunch of people shot dead. Gee, who could have foreseen that? You can buy weed at the local high school too.

Canada's gun control laws ban dozens of assault rifles, but some permitted firearms are easily modified for greater damage, and more lax regulations in the United States make smuggled weapons accessible, experts said after a rare Canadian mass shooting on Sunday.

Damn those Americans. It is totally their fault that some random asshole in another country decided a bunch of people needed to die. Donald Trump is a Nazi!

Police have not commented on the type of gun used, but sources said it was a semi-automatic weapon.

Yeah, "police have not commented" is the interesting part of this sentence. Three days after the Sandy Hook shooting, everybody knew the make/model/serial numbers of the firearms involved. But in Canada, the matter of what kind of firearm was used is a state secret. It is more important to stage-manage the rubes than to let us know what happened, so we can plan accordingly. Global News seems totally fine with that.

Now we get to the part where they start making shit up from whole cloth.

Semi-automatic guns can legally hold magazines up to five rounds in Canada, but many military-style semi-automatics are easily modified to 30 rounds, said A.J. Somerset, an author on gun issues.

And while some rifles are banned by name, knock-offs are allowed, he said.

"Canada's classification system is a mess," Somerset said. "If someone wants to do the shooting at the mosque, they can obtain a non-restricted firearm in Canada that is functionally the same as an AK-47, illegally modify it, and they have exactly the rifle we don't want them to have."

That's nice, AJ. Yes, a guy with a bunch of metalworking tools and knowledge can modify a firearm illegally. See above for laws against killing people and selling weed in the local high-school.

Who's this A.J. Somerset guy, that he gets quoted as an "expert" though? He's a block captain who wrote a book, that's who he is. He thinks, because he has a really swelled head I suppose, that he is so smart he can decide for you how things should be in your life. You run into these guys every so often in the military, the cops, the fire department. He's the "Use your common sense, man!" guy, the guy who never saw a law he didn't think was justified. Law and order, hell yeah! Support the authorities, first last and always!

Freedom? Well, no. Freedom is for your betters, rube. You can't be trusted with freedom. Get back to work.

My complete rebuttal to Mr. A.J. Somerset is Ivan the Drunk Russian. This is what gun control and laws get you, AJ baby: A semi-auto AK-47, built out of a shovel. Note the lack of precision machine tools used in construction. Add a Bridgeport mill and a four foot long metal lathe, under $8K bought new from the store, and Ivan has himself a little factory. He can make as many as he wants.

Imagine what a Scottish engineer could do, without the vodka. But that's not the real argument. The utter futility of a regulation is no impediment to a guy like AJ.

Here's the rebuttal part, AJ. I made a car once. All by myself. Frame and everything. Should you be worried I might take my car that I built and drive it up on the sidewalk to kill people with it? No, but I bet you are. Block captains worry about shit like that. They face the nagging fear that somebody, somewhere is stepping out of line without proper authorization.

So, to recap: Angry White Men are to blame, and the Americans of course, how dare you question authority?! Nothing to see here, get back to work your taxes are due.